“No.  Certainly not.  As for me, I am going to take Regina away at once.  I shall bring my own carriage down from the villa.”

“By the bye,” Kalmon said, “I had thought of that.  The house in which I live is divided into many small apartments.  There is a very good one to let, decently furnished.  I thought of taking it myself, and I looked at it yesterday.  You might put the young lady there until you can find what you may prefer.  She can move in at once.”

“Nothing could be better.  If you are going home, will you say that I take the place and will be there in an hour?  No. 16, Via Sicilia, is it not?”

“Yes.  I’ll see to it.  Shall I take the lease in your name?”

“No.  Any name will do better.  The reporters would find her at once under mine.”

“I’ll use my own,” said the Professor.  “I’ll say that she is a lady who has arrived to consult me—­I daresay she will—­and that I’m responsible for her.”

“Thank you,” answered Marcello gratefully.  “And thank you for all that you have done to help me.”

“My dear Marcello,” Kalmon said, smiling cheerfully, “in the first place, I have done nothing to help you, and secondly, through excess of zeal, I have got you into a very unpleasant situation, by indirectly causing a woman to be murdered in your house, and the murderer almost mauled to death by that very singular wild beast which your man calls a dog, and which I had often noticed in old times at the cottage.  So there is nothing at all to thank me for, though I am most heartily at your service.”

The Professor was positively in high spirits just then, and Marcello envied him as they parted and took opposite directions.

Though the Via Sicilia was a long way from the Janiculum, Marcello had been only too glad to accept Kalmon’s suggestion at such a moment.  Regina would feel that she was protected by Marcello’s friend, and though she might rarely see him, it would be better for her than to be lodged in a house where she knew no one.  Kalmon was a bachelor and a man of assured position, and it had cost him nothing to undertake to give Regina his protection; but Marcello was deeply grateful.  He had already made up his mind as to what he would do next.

It had stopped raining at last, and the wind had fallen to a soft breeze that bore the morning mist gently away towards the sea, and hardly stirred the wet leaves that strewed the road all the way up to San Pietro in Montorio.  Marcello found the gate of the villa already open, for it was nearly eight o’clock by the time he got there.

He summoned the servants to the library, told them briefly what had happened, and warned them that they might be summoned as witnesses at the coming trial, as most of them had been in his mother’s service.  In the days before Corbario had lost his head, and when he had controlled the household, it had been a part of his policy to have really respectable servants about him, and though some of them had never quite trusted him, they had all been devoted to the Signora and to Marcello.  They listened in respectful silence now, and waited till he was out of the house before meeting to discuss the tragedy and to decide that Corbario had got his deserts at last.